In the past, in a component mounting line for mounting components such as electronic components onto a substrate such as a printed wiring board, it is important to carry out equalization (leveling) of tact in each component mounting machine that configure the component mounting line, in order to realize shorter tact (mounting time).
On the occasion of carrying out the suchlike equalization of tact, there is such a technology that a higher-level device, which is located in a higher-level of each component mounting machine of the component mounting line, is disposed separately, and this higher-level device becomes an optimization device of a component mounting process, and mounting object components are allocated to component mounting machines (e.g., JP-A-2003-174299 publication).
However, the above-described higher-level device is one which requires high processing ability, and there was a problem from the side of cost.